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TAIT: Creating World Class Experiences

Author

Released

6/28/2017

TAIT was founded in 1978 by Michael Tait as a lighting business. Since its inception, TAIT has evolved into an industry vanguard focused on creating the kind of immersive experiences that inspire wonder, and make onlookers rush to grab their phones to film the spectacle. TAIT has been the creative and technical force behind an array of innovative live-event equipment, from a kinetic sculpture commissioned by Mr. Chow that amazes the diners at his Las Vegas restaurant, to a propeller runway project that allowed Taylor Swift to spin over the crowds at her concerts. In this documentary, learn about the people and processes that help to bring these experiences to life. Discover how different segments of the company—business development, project management, design and engineering, fabrication, and integration—come together to transform early creative conceptions from artists, architects, and show designers into a final product that dazzles on opening night.

Skill Level Appropriate for all

33m 49s

Duration

5,376

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(light electronic music)- [Gemma] The experience once you see somethingyou've developed come to life isabsolutely amazing.- [Matt] Standing in the middle of a stadiumand seeing 100,000 people going absolutely crazyabout something that you were directly a part of.- [Jim] This is not a 9:00am - 5:00pm job.

This is lifestyle job.This something you have to invest your whole self into create these things.- [Tyler] To explore these boundariesand these areas outside of the box so to speak,I think that's the thing that I love to come hereevery day and do.(light electronic music)(rock music)- TAIT was founded by Michael Tait in 1978as a lighting business and over time the businesstransitioned from lighting,which really became commoditized, into scenic and staging.

What TAIT is really the best in the world atis taking super early creative conceptions,whether those come from artists or architectsor show designers or lighting designers,all the way through to opening nightor to an experience that makes somebodyget out of their chair and scream or a child laugh.- Being on the cutting edge of entertainmentnobody wants to do the thing that everybody saw last time.So even if the technical solution is similar,how do we make it look unique?Or often, how do we solve the unique challengethat this artist is bringing to us?- We're headquartered here in Lititz.

We have about 330 people full time with usand that includes everyone from designersand architects to welders, painters, carpenters,to a good portion of our senior leadership,but we have offices all over the world.- When I came here, people weren't talking aboutbeing innovative.They were being innovative and they were doing it.And that was something that really stuck out to meand drew me to the environment.

- A lot of these concert tours in the way that industryworks now, happen on such a compressed time tablethat you really need to be able to work quickand make decisions and figure out how to make it workin the field.- If you can make one small changethat makes everything better and more efficientand easier for the end user, which are roadies,who are very critical people, it's absolutely worth it.

- All of our equipment needs to be modularand it has to install very fast.So what you see here is we'll provide a layoutexactly where every piece of equipment is labeledgoes in the set up.So anybody anywhere can basically pick it up and go with itand it gives them a diagram of where it's at.What's really cool is when it comes back off the showyou can see that it's colored white tapewith the number 44, that's position in the semi trailerthat it goes into so it can load in real fastand load back out real quick.- We put a lot of thought into the amount of workthat it takes to unpack something from the back of a truckand turn it into something that the audienceis going to be amazed by.

- [Eric] Sometime in the late 2000s the futureof live entertainment was shifting so much towardsexperience and production values had gottenso much larger than they were historicallythat automation became critical.- Out of show development we made the Navigator softwarewhich helps us talk to all kinds of different systems.- [Sam H.] And it's very unique in the fact thatit's one of the only sort of ground upmotion control platforms written with entertainment in mind.

- Each winch, each point of control exists on its own.So it's completely scalable all the way up to giant showslike Cirque du Soleil in Las Vegasor down to your smallest high school show.- It not only runs automation, flying performers,moving scenery, but it is also a show controllerthat can run every single part of your show.- [Sam H.] Controlling motors and pumps and fansand all sorts of stuff and doing that all safely.

- The natural progression wasgetting into different robotics systems.From robotics we then control different lighting effects,taking wind speeds, kind of augment different live shows,but we can also get into architecture.- The Omnia Nightclub was one of the very first examplesof kinetic architecture project that we did here at TAIT.It was what actually kind of lead me to this thesisthat there was more projects like thisout there in the world that we could go afterif we really focused on it.

- We take on the projects that others say,"No, we can't do that."And we say, "Sure, we can do that, we will figure it out."And folks in the industry understand when they come to TAITwhat they're going to get and it's going to bea best in class experience.- So how do we go achieve their vision in the time we havewith the tools that we have in front of us?That's one of the most rewarding parts of the job.(light electronic music)The TAIT Process breaks down pretty well into four phases:project management, design, fabrication, and integration.

- Once the project manager gets an idea from the artistor whatever company that is functioning as our clientthey sit down with design and figure out the partsthat are entailed and what needs to happento make that idea come to life.- A lot of the stuff we do have never been done beforeand is done from scratch.We do a great deal of prototyping.- You kind of get it out of the computer,you get it in your hands and people can talk about it.- [Jim] And then we kick it out to fabricationand they go build whatever the machine or the object is.

- We have the staging department or deckingwhich builds the platform for the whole thingand then the custom group, we build everythingthat's on top of that.- At this point, the show has only been looked atas a series of components.It hasn't necessarily been considered as a show.So the integrators take all the individual components,all the individual machines and put them togetherto create a show.- With controls integration we're specifically looking atthe electrical and the electrical mechanical elementsto the show and the software used in the showand we want to make sure that all comes togetherinto a nice package that is going to work for the artistand work for the show.

- And then integration finishes the processby labeling it all so we can put it back togetherafter we take it apart.And they pack it up, we put it on trucks,and we take it to the clientand hopefully they love everything that we did.- [Kevin] So on Phish, for instance,we knew that they wanted to have video screensfloating in the middle of the airand then they wanted to dramatically openand provide this really neat kinetic look.- Every concept that we came up with for the first dozen,you saw the mechanism that was going to make it happen.

And so you're blowing the gag without even doing the gag.- [Sam H.] We had over 50 different motorsand moving machines on that show between the video wall,the control for trusses and lightingand other pieces of structure.- In the end, the structure ended up actually becomingkind of an art piece.There was so much line and form when the thing was openingthat they ended up lighting it,rather than hiding it, accentuating it.

I'll never forget being at rehearsals,standing there watching Trey Anastasiosee it for the first time and be like,"Dude, did you see that thing that's happeningright behind you on the video screen?It's amazing!"- I'm really proud of that.I think we knocked it out of the parkand couldn't have asked for a better team on that.- Together you sort of get this skills matrixof people where people have all sorts of backgroundsand all sorts of technical abilities.

- Anybody from a well trained and academically trainedengineer skillset to a somebody with a very elaboratetheatrical background.- [Sam H.] And then we pair them up with projectsthat work to their strengths.- I think that's one of the key benefitsthat TAIT has always had,and probably the competitive advantage for us,is that diversity of those teams that we have.- Everyone's blending a little bitwith their various talents and when they come togetherto make a show it's really remarkable.

- I spent a ton of time understandingwhat is the day today at TAIT?What motivates this group of people?Trying to build a company that would foster that.- I think one of the things that I found key so faris kind of being thrown into projects to learnand do things more hands-on.- We have so many really really clever,very experienced, very qualified people internallyand actually just sitting down and askingfor 30 minutes of their time to explain somethingis being really really helpful.

- I think just the fact that we don't really have cubiclesmakes it nice and easy to communicate and not as restrictedas it might be in a regular office setting.- It's a very open environment in terms of designand the way that our floor looks but as well aspeople sharing their experiences and their lives togetherso does contribute to the level of work that we providebecause it creates a bond.- And now we celebrate.- Now we celebrate.

- I don't come to work because it's a paycheck,I come to work because it's a lifestylethat I happen to be lucky enough to do and get paid for.- [Sam B.] At the end of the day you're providing a servicethat's even greater than the work that you're doinghere to get your paycheck, it's actually contributingto people being able to escape reality.- And being able to build something like thatthat makes people happy, that motivates me extremely.- No where else that I've ever worked have I come acrossthis type of facility with these types of machines,let alone the type of people standing next to mewho come together as a team, get this amazing productout the door.